Since retiring in 2004 Warren and I have been travelling over the winter months. Our goal is to visit and exprience as many places in the world as we can. So far we have been to many spots in Mexico, Hawaii, Jamaica, Belize, Venezuela, Cuba, St. Marten, St. Thomas, and Thailand. In 2011 we will visit Hong Kong, Vietnam and revisit Thailand.
Greetings from Vietnam and our final blog from Our Asia Adventure. We have found a little piece of paradise here on the island of Phu Quoc! The weather is fantastic; warm, sunny and calm. We are staying at the Seastar Resort in a beach front bungalow surrounded by palm and almond trees that is one of the nicest small ocean front resorts we have been to. The beach has beautiful soft white sand and the water is clear and perfect for swimming. Somedays the water is like glass and other days lovely gentle waves to play in. The temperature is just right so we spend a lot of time bobbing around. Besides beaching it, there are massage and spa ladies on our beach that give a pretty good 45 min massage for $3!! The only drawback ... read more
Greetings from Nha Trang, Vietnam! Well, I guess it finally caught up to us. For the first time in all our years of travel we have hit a brick wall in terms of weather! The day we arrived around 5 p.m., it was lovely and sunny and you could tell it had been a great beach day. The next morning we pulled on our bathings suits ready for the beach when we took a second look and realized we would not be going to the beach that day. For the next 9 days it was wind, rain and cloud except for about 2 hours of a few blue patches of sky and 5 minutes when the sun poked out. Consequently I my pictures will be rather grey and gloomy! Needless to say we never made it ... read more
Hello again family and friends! After a comfortable four hour bus ride norht, we arrived at the beach resort town of Mui Ne. The area is known for its excellent kite boarding conditions. Kites from all over the world conveine here because of the moderate and constant winds. The weather is great a lovely average of 30 degrees. Besides the wind sports there are many beautiful up-scale resorts, a nice beach and a fairly strong surf. The highlight for us is our resort - Tien Dat (Blue Waves). We certainly hit the jackpot here. We have a spacious and beautiful deluxe suite with a large open balcony within steps of one of the awesome pools. So I am back to my swimming routine and of course lounging in the pool as well. It is a very ... read more
Continuing on we flew from the Danang Airport (near Hoi An) to Saigon. Some of you may recognize Danang as the city where the U.S. troops were dropped off. After an hour flight with Vietnam Airways on a huge plane we arrived in Saigon. Saigon (population 8 million and 6 million motorbikes!) was re-named Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the revolutionary leader, however many people still refer to it as Saigon especially in the central district #1. Well, we got a surprise with the traffic. We thought we had seen it all in Hanoi, but Saigon is even crazier. It is just nuts!! I took a video that I will try to put on the blog that might give you a bit of an idea of what it is like, but I don't think ... read more
Xin Chaoo (pronounced Seen Chow) fellow bloggers! (Hello in Vietnamese) Our Vietnam adventure continues!! We arrived in Hue after our sleeper train ride early in the morning and were transferred to our hotel along the magestick Perfume river. The first thing we noticed is the weater was warm again!! Out come the shorts and tank tops once more! Hue is an interesting city in that it was very instrumental during the french occupation and the Vietnam War. Until 1945 Vietnam was ruled by many glamourous and worshipped kings and their royal families. Hue was the royal family's headquarters and remained the capital of Vietnma until 1945 when it was moved to Hanoi. A lot of Hue including the walled citadel and Imperial City was decimated during the wars with the french and americans, however there are ... read more
To begin our adventure in Vietnam, we flew with Air Asia from Bangkok to Hanoi in the north of Vietnam. We had an amazing introduction to Hanoi. What a place!! We stayed in a perfect spot in the "Old Quarter" close to all the sights and sounds. Our room at the Capital Hotel is small, quaint and comfortable. All the hotels in Hanoi are tall, thin and with only one or two rooms on each floor. The staff are very friendly, speak Engllish well and are very helpful. We still can't get over how inexpensive everything is! Our room is $25/night and includes breakfast for two! A meal and a drink is around $3-$5. The thing that struck us immediately is the traffic of scooters and cars. We have never seen anything like it!! There are ... read more
Our last week in Thailand! We have mixed emotions about leaving. We will definately miss our time here but are looking forward to Vietnam. Here's a quick summary of what we have been up to this past week! We were at a 1st birthday party this week. Beo (owner of Sweet and Sour Restaurant) has a little boy who turned one. (Bot!) A cute little guy who dances, says "crap"(means hello) and does the Thai bow! We all had icecream and cake with candles and singing. He plays in a little paddling pool in the middle of the restaurant floor! He actually lives with his grandma and grandpa about 2 hours away. This is very common when the parents work wherever they can get a job. When we show pictures of our grandson Parker, many of ... read more
Life continues on Lanta as we wind down our second week on the island. Hope this blog finds everyone healthy and happy! We started off the week with a trip to the island of Koh Roc which is part of a National Marine Park noted for its snorkelling. We left at 8 a.m. by speedboat with about 10 other travellers for a 40 min. ride south. The first half of the ride was smooth as silk but ended up to be a very choppy ride but we made it safe and sound. We snorkeled at 3 different spots - very beautiful with lovely fish and amazing coral. However, not quite as nice as Belize! The highlight was a giant school of thousands of deep purple fish feeding off a healthy coral. Our snorkel guide instructed us ... read more
Hello fellow bloggers! After a 45 minute flight from Ko Samui to Krabi on Bangkok Airways, we travelled by van to the peer crossing and then over to Lanta on two short ferry rides. A few minutes drive and we arrive at Lanta Garden Hill Resort, our destination for the next three weeks. Right away we notice the climate - very hot, dry and clear. Perfect for beach living! No sign of rain here and averaging 34 - 40 degrees everyday. The pools, ocean and umbrellas on the beach keep us cool and relaxed. Within a few days, I was swimming and bathing with a gigantic elephant! Yikes, this was quite the experience never to forget. Some Thai friends that we met last time invited us to go along with them to the south of the ... read more
Our last week on Samui was great ..... some relaxation, touring and of course enjoying our stressfull daily routine!! Here's a glimpse of what we have been up to this week. *** Chewang Beach *** One day we hopped in a sarthong (taxi truck where you hop on and off anywhere on the island) an headed to the next beach called Chewang. It's a much bigger, touristy, busy and upscale area and a fun place to visit for awhile.We did some shopping, had a nice supper and ended off with a drink at the booming "Happy Bar" *** Meeting New Friends *** As mentioned before what we like best about travelling is meeting people from all different countries. We enjoyed a couple from Sweden (Clarence and Margartia). We spent a few days and evenings with them ... read more
